Euthanasia in the Context of Sick Societiesby Barbara Sumner
Burstynwww.dissidentvoice.org
April 13, 2004

* Editor's Note: Dissident Voice has been
pleased to publish Barbara Burstyn's New Zealand Herald columns since last
summer. This is Burstyn's last column with The Herald. Her column was
terminated by The Herald, whose explanation was simply that her work
“suffered from a disconnect to issues of the day.” More about that in the
April 13 entry of
my
weblog. We leave it to readers of this column to judge whether it lacks
"a disconnect to the issues of the day."

It's
euthanasia time again. With the guilty verdict in the trial of Lesley
Martin, and Act MP Deborah Coddington's odd denial of involvement in, but
endorsement of, the death of tetraplegic lawyer Michael Crew 16 years ago,
euthanasia is back on the social agenda.

While Deborah Coddington's
involvement with Michael Crew was not publicly known, one wonders if her
announcement was pre-emptive politics, designed to stave of some future
accusation and if she would have responded differently had the Martin
verdict gone the other way.

That aside, she said
Michael Crew was the owner of his own life and that it was his alone to take
- ignoring the fact that he needed considerable help to complete his act of
taking.

Deborah Coddington is
correct, if you view life in a narrow, born-alone, die-alone kind of way.
But set aside the argument of an individual's right to choose to die for a
moment and consider this question. How would legalized euthanasia change our
society? Specifically, how would it affect those who are terminally ill but
don't want to be euthanased, the aged, disabled or beyond functioning?

In the United States, where
euthanasia is also a hot topic, disability rights groups are joining forces
to fight euthanasia and change the dialogue that surrounds it, from the
religious inference of redemptive suffering to more secular debates, such as
the appropriateness of neo-eugenics and the rise of the so-called
futile-care theory.

The latter would allow
doctors to unilaterally refuse a patient's request for life-sustaining
treatment, based on the perceived "quality" of that patient's life.

Disabled activist group Not
Dead Yet says that while euthanasia is described as compassionate, legalized
medical killing, it is really about a deadly double-standard for people with
severe disabilities.

Certainly you cannot enact
a law without a standard. While proponents scream choice, doctors need
something more concrete, a line in the sand of suffering after which killing
someone becomes acceptable.

And once the government has
taken that first step of acquiescing to the supposed will of the people in
legalizing euthanasia, what is to stop slippage from the terminally ill to
the non-terminally ill, to people with disabilities?

If this seems far-fetched,
don't forget it has already been done. In 1933 the German Medical
Association legalized physician-assisted suicide. Starting with competent
patients with terminal illnesses who requested it, it quickly moved on to
mentally incompetent patients and, eventually, to anyone economically or
ideologically unprofitable to the state.

Between 1933 and 1941, more
than 70,000 "futile or terminal" patients were killed in German hospitals.

A historical aberration?
Maybe. But, as Dr Anneke Maendel has pointed out, data from the Netherlands,
where physician-assisted suicide is legal, shows that in 1995 almost 1000
deaths were due to active euthanasia without the request of the patient.

The Dutch study concluded
that the number of patients killed without their consent had increased by 50
per cent over a five-year period, and that adequate regulation was not
possible.

And then, of course, there
is the issue of suicide. Take the pro-euthanasia argument of individual
choice a step further and you will have to end all opposition to suicide.
After all, that fatal act is a personal choice all the way.

Perhaps it is this, the
essential dichotomy of euthanasia, that is the real issue - on the one hand,
it is positioned as the ultimate choice in a free society, while in reality,
euthanasia has the potential to be the ultimate solution to the problem of
society's human burdens.

This was starkly played out
in the Lesley Martin trial. Martin, who has portrayed herself as a staunch
pro-euthanasia campaigner, based her defence on her personal state, the
level of her personal burden and the concomitant exhaustion she suffered.

Which begs the question: if
she had just had access to or accepted more help and had enough sleep would
her mother have lived considerably longer?

People like Lesley Martin
and Deborah Coddington want us to view euthanasia in a vacuum of personal
rights, as a neutral option, bleached of its impact on society. But it is,
in fact, deeply value-laden and our support, or otherwise, reflects the
cultural, economical, ethical, spiritual and moral framework of individuals
and our society.

So while it's true that we
own our own lives, each of us is inextricably connected to the other and
there are times when the greater good must triumph over individual freedoms.

This is one of those times.
One of the indicators of a civilized society is how well it cares for its
weakest members.

Legalizing the removal of
humans because they do not fit what experience shows would become an
increasingly narrow definition of functioning is a form of eugenics, a
dangerous and destructive belief system that will slip from the aged, infirm
and terminally ill to anyone with a disability, anyone who does not meet a
state-endorsed standard of physical and mental wellbeing.

Ask yourself this: if your
community supported euthanasia, if you knew that services, support, even
tolerance for your infirmity, your disability, your pain and illness was a
diminishing resource, what choice would you really have in your decision to
accept your own euthanasia?

* This is my last Monday
dialogue column for the New Zealand Herald. Thanks to those who have read
and responded, often passionately, to the columns. It's been a pleasure.